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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29476935">Bouquet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacehopeandrats/pseuds/peacehopeandrats'>peacehopeandrats</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Monthly Rumbelling 2021 [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Once Upon a Time (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A Monthly Rumbelling February 2021 (Once Upon A Time), Family, Fluff, Gen, Missing Years</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:15:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,361</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29476935</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacehopeandrats/pseuds/peacehopeandrats</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle discovers a photograph that Rumple didn't want her to see. A short little ficlet of fluff and sweetness.</p><p>Written for February's Monthly Rumbelling</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Belle/Rumplestiltskin | Mr. Gold</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Monthly Rumbelling 2021 [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2088708</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Bouquet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The prompt for this little ficlet was taken from the floral image of the February Monthly Rumbelling moodboard, which is found here: https://a-monthly-rumbelling.tumblr.com/post/641933258078257152/prompts-for-february</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Rumple!”</p><p>The echo of his name through the hotel suite made Rumplestiltskin cringe. He had just managed to get Gideon to sleep after three of the usual bedtime stories, an explanation of how rainbows formed, and a recitation of Sleep Well. The last thing Rumple wanted now was for his wife’s excited yelp to undo all of his evening’s work.</p><p>Hurrying to the bedroom door, he scurried out and guided it into place with a gentle click. Once Gideon was sealed in, Rumple shushed Belle with a hiss and turned, finger to his lips. “I just got him to sleep. What-” His words snapped to a halt the instant he saw the object Belle held between her thumb and finger, flapping in front of her face as if it were a fan.</p><p>“When did you take this?” Belle stood with her head tipped to one side, lips stretched into a tight line. The corners of her mouth twitched in an obvious effort to keep from smiling.</p><p>Rumple couldn’t see the image on the Polaroid she held up, but he knew exactly which one it was. He sighed and guided her farther from Gideon’s door, whispering his explanations as he went. “Yesterday, when you were cleaning up, after we got back from the pool downstairs.”</p><p>Belle flapped the image again, once, with such a sharpness that made Rumple pull his head back. He felt like a dog who had just been scolded by a rolled up newspaper swatted at his nose. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t take any more pictures like these.”</p><p>Despite her tone, Belle was now properly smiling and Rumple found it hard not to do the same. “I couldn’t resist,” he whispered as he drew her close, hands resting on her hips. Head tilted to the side, he tried to charm her out of her worries and into their bed. “It was the perfect capture of a domestic moment.”</p><p>His wife wasn’t yet in the mood to be manipulated, cutting him off again before he could say more. "It looks more like a companion to the one you took on Gideon’s first birthday, outside of Granny’s. The one where I was hunched over and squinting while talking. I looked like a snarling drunkard!” She giggled then, but pulled herself together quickly, schooling her expression back into mock seriousness. “And this one isn’t much better.”</p><p>“Well, I didn’t do it intentionally,” Rumple insisted quickly, chuckling himself. “In either case.” He tried to lean in for a kiss, but Belle pulled away, eyes narrowed even though they still sparkled with amusement. Finally she held up the Polaroid so that he could see and pointed at the evidence of her complaint. “My hair is a <i>mess</i> and I look like I’m falling face first into the bouquet.” Her hand lifted to indicate the collection of white and pink flowers standing on the nearby table, then let it drop to her side with a slap that made rumple cringe toward Gideon’s door.</p><p>“You were beautiful,” he protested quietly while reaching out to try and draw her closer to their own bedroom. </p><p>Belle almost snorted. “Look at it, Rumple. There is <i>nothing</i> about this photograph that is beautiful.”</p><p>With the picture presented to him again, Rumplestiltskin took full advantage and plucked the image from her. Feeling like a schoolboy leading his childhood sweetheart away for a quick tryst, he caught Belle’s hand in his, entwined their fingers, and guided her across the living space and into their bedroom. Once inside, he glanced across the suite, simply out of habit, then shut the door. </p><p>It was clear from the moment he turned back to her that Belle could no longer hold in her smile, even if she wasn’t yet ready to give in completely. Arms folded, she pretended to be offended by his behavior though they both knew this entire affair was nothing but a pale reenactment of their lives back in the castle, an unusual flirtation that was something uniquely their own.</p><p>“You moved when I was trying to capture the moment,” Rumple told her as he held the Polaroid up for her to see. “But even with that mistake, this photograph means as much to me as any of the ones in our book.” </p><p>He handed it back to her to free his hands, then reached up to run his fingers through her hair, combing it and arranging it on top of her head in a horrible approximation of a bun. “Your hair was up the way Lacy used to wear it because you had just finished giving Gideon his bath…”</p><p>Letting out a sigh of contentment, Belle leaned into the touch. She glanced down at the image as if weighing it against his words, so Rumple continued to play with her hair, releasing the pile to let it cascade around her shoulders, then combing through it again to make another pile, this time more toward the back of her head. Tenderly he let his fingers brush along her neck and heard her whisper his name.</p><p>“You were bending to pick up one of the toys Gideon left out and yes, the roses got in the way, but I had those delivered because it was our anniversary and if <i>anything</i> was going to come between us on that night, a symbol of our love was the best barrier I could imagine.” He lowered his hands to meet hers so that they held the image together. Fingers caressing over her soft skin, Rumple pulled in a long breath to try and keep himself from sounding too desperate for her understanding. It was a tease, they both knew that, yet he also wanted her to know exactly why these crazy photographs meant the world to him.</p><p>“We can capture a night in Paris with a map or a day in New York with a ticket stub from the carousel, but I don’t want to memorialize only those things. I want to remember everything. This isn’t just a picture of your messy hair and awkward position, this is a moment of motherhood caught in time, a moment when we were truly just a family, doing the ordinary, everyday things that make up our lives together.”</p><p>Belle’s eyes lifted from the photograph and met his. “You never had a chance like this with Baelfire or Milah.”</p><p>“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Rumple admitted. “I’m not even sure if that is what this is about. All that I know is that I could live for centuries on the smallest memories of us being a family. Spaghetti sauce in Gideon’s hair, flour dusting the kitchen of that apartment we rented because I dropped the bag, running to enter the first building we see because we’ve been caught in a downpour only to find out we’d entered an adult store with Gideon on my hip…”</p><p>The final memory earned him a giggle. “We were lucky the owner was willing to let us stay,” Belle said with a playful look of embarrassment.</p><p>“It helped that he was still too young to properly understand,” Rumple told her. </p><p>“That and he was too terrified of the thunder to look up from your shoulder.”</p><p>Rumple grinned and let his hands wander to where Belle’s shirt hung loose at her sides and slipped a tender caress underneath. When the pads of his fingers met her skin, she let out a beautifully familiar sigh of contentment and tipped her head back, exposing her neck for him to devour. He bent and pressed a kiss just below her ear, then another, making a slow trail down the length of what was revealed to him.</p><p>“Or the quick thinking on your part to cover him with your coat,” he murmured as his lips moved lower.</p><p>“I love you, Rumple,” Belle breathed. He felt her hands snake around him to pull him closer and hummed his appreciation.</p><p>“And I love you, Sweetheart,” he promised before taking the captured essence of their anniversary and setting it on the table beside the bed. It was time to make another memory and they needed their hands free to begin.</p>
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